Lost and Fathers
by HanuuEshe
Summary: Why Molly never calls them 'Dad'. Angsty.


-1Molly's birth was a grand occasion for her Grandmother. Nana had been looking forward to grandchildren for nearly a decade at that point, since James, her only son, had married Eve. And now they were finally giving her the grandchild she'd been pestering them about for years upon years and it was almost too much. She had so much to do! So much to prepare for! And she was certain, she said in a conspiratorial tone to anyone and everyone she could corner, that her grandchild would be special. Just like her father, and just like she and Jacob were, back in their French Resistance/ American GI days, God bless his soul.

This sort of mutterings seemed to make James a little uneasy, and there were many, many whispered conversations about such a happening between himself and Eve, and there would be even more such conversations, later, after Molly was born, but that was later. Then, they stopped after Nana announced her intentions to make her new grandchild a set of Winnie the Pooh stuffed animals.

Unfortunately, or perhaps not so unfortunately, it had been quite some time since Nana had had to see the silly old bear, and all the dolls ended up being mutated. Pooh was carrot orange rather than yellow, Tigger had three tails, Owl's feet were fives times the size of the rest of his body, Eyore grinned maniacally, and Roo looked more like a rabbit than Rabbit did.

It didn't matter to Molly. She very quickly latched on to the homemade set as her favorite playthings, complete disregarding their proper names and insisted upon calling them Woo, Trigger, Fannie, Donald, Roobit and Wabbit.

One or the other of the dolls were always at her side over the next few years, right up until she turned six and her family made a week-long pilgrimage to Disneyland.

She'd brought them of course; she couldn't bear to be separated from her favorite playthings. There's a picture, probably tucked away in some dark corner of the FBI's headquarters with the rest of her family's belongings, or her riding on an elephant with Roobit in her arms.

It was the last time she'd seen the doll. By the time she'd realized that it was missing, they were already on their way home.

She was inconsolable at first. Roobit wasn't just her toy, it was practically her friend. She loved it. And now he was gone, and she'd never hug it ever again.

Her father talked her out of it. And handed down a little piece of advice she wouldn't fully understand the wisdom of until later.

Sometimes, it's better to leave the things you love in a safe place, even if it was far away from you. That way you couldn't lose them.

It wasn't so bad, really. She was six, and she had all her other dolls to play with, and she was getting a little old to be carrying around stuffed animals all the time anyway. Besides, she'd found that if she concentrated hard enough, she could see Roobit, first in the lost and found, then in the arms of the son of one of the janitors who worked the night shift. She could probably find it now, if she wanted to. It wasn't like it'd been murdered or anything.

It was different for her parents. She didn't have another set to fall back on, and probably wouldn't have been able to do so even if she did. She couldn't see them, no matter how hard she thought about them, no matter how much she wanted to.

She was falling; her powers failing and she was so lonely and scared and there was no one she could talk to, no one, no one…

Matt caught her, briefly, dragging her out of her hiding place under the stairs, where she'd been pretending to be Harriet Potter in the before, before her parents had been murdered, and there was screaming and banging and a face she would never forget, because how can you forget the man who became your own personal boogeyman, a nightmare that should have vanished with the light of day, instead of making the light disappear instead?

But then Matt had had to leave, and she'd been falling and lonely again until Mohinder caught her. And he didn't let go, had even found Matt again and they'd become a family together.

She was no longer falling. But she was still alone.

It was by choice, this time, however. She'd learned her lessons well.

Keeping things close to you only meant that their was more of a chance you could lose them.

It's why Molly has to Daddies, but she'll never call them that. It's why she can't bring herself to echo back the words 'I love you' when they whisper them to her at night. She's not going to lose them, not like she lost Roobit all those years ago, to someone who made him happy but wasn't her, or like her parents, never to see or hear them again.

She won't lose her family again.

So, no matter how much it hurts, she doesn't keep them close.


End file.
